


How We Will Be Made

by zoewinter1



Category: One Piece
Genre: <3, AU of an AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Cultural genocide, Dystopia, Gen, How we're made verse, christmas present for lee, fae, i wrote this in like 5 days what the hell, look no one comes out happy out of this, lots and lots of angst, no seriously lots of angst mind the warnings, tag in there cuz yeah thats a thing that happens, uh should probably throw a, unofficial prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoewinter1/pseuds/zoewinter1
Summary: With infertility plaguing the world for nearly a decade, and nuclear war on the horizon, Sabo just keeps his head down and does what it takes to survive. Ace and Luffy have lived a happy childhood in the mountains with their flight clan, but the sky is dying and they must seek out safe lands. In a world where they don't take risks and don't follow their heart, will they make it out?(Unofficial prequel to How We're Made by Paox here on AO3)





	How We Will Be Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paox/gifts).
  * Inspired by [How We're Made](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11878269) by [paox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paox/pseuds/paox). 



> Um Merry Christmas lee? Plz don't kill me I figured that writing fanfiction for ur fanfiction would make up for the fact that this is some of the angstiest shit I've written all year.  
> This is an unofficial prequel to How We're Made by Paox which you might want to read before reading this one. I think this stands okay as a standalone but tbh just go read HWM it's so good

_I was born in a thunderstorm_  

 _I grew up overnight_  

When Sabo caught the sound of the giant military convoy making its way down the street he ducked into an alleyway. He wasn't the only one, a few other draft dodgers hid their faces or slouched their backs to avoid detection. The soldiers in the rumbling trucks paid no mind to the civilians lining the streets, more concerned with their destination than a few scragglers avoiding military service, but it paid to be cautious. Sabo hadn't made it this far by taking risks.  

Long after the trucks had passed, and the dust from them settles, Sabo went back onto the main street with his newspaper tucked under one arm. The headline read  ** _Russian experiments take a turn for the worst_** which he'd read later, if any of it was true. Nowadays you had to be skeptical of any information regarding America's enemies.  

He trudged down the street, keeping his head down and his attention on each step in front of him. Everyone around him did the same, minding their own business and going about their days without interacting. It was dangerous to break the mold now, to stand out or be perceived as suspicious. Everyone knew at least one neighbor who'd made an offhand comment about the state of affairs and then vanished.  Anyone perceived as a spy was dealt with, anyone you knew could be a government watch dog. It was better to just keep your head down.  

It was especially important to keep your head down when you were a 17 year old healthy male eligible for the draft.  

They weren't at war, not yet, but it was imminent. What with Russia's illegal environmental experimentation and America's illegal human experimentation, and the looming threat of eight and a half years of infertility it was becoming increasingly possible that they were the last of the human race that would ever see the planet earth. So of course, the logical the logical thing to do was speed their extinction the fuck up.  

He stepped around a puddle, taking a turn down the side street he lived on. He'd been 9 when the Infertility had begun, and his parents had immediately adopted another child his age "to ensure the family blood line was passed on" which was their covert way of stating they didn't trust Sabo, which wasn't entirely inaccurate considering he'd run away 3 years later.  

He marched up the steps to his apartment complex, a converted motel that didn't ask too many questions. He had about three days' worth of canned food, and several liters of water in case anything happened be it nuclear war or riots in the markets (again) but he should get more. He'd made it this far by playing it safe, and he intended to make it a lot further.  

\--- 

Ace's memories of his childhood were vague, at best. He remembered playing on the rocks with Luffy, adventuring in the area surrounding their village and jumping crevices that fell hundreds of meters below them. He remembered the summers when the glaciers began to melt and mountain streams would fill the dry river beds. He and Luffy would hike down to where the water collected into pools to swim on the hot summer days, their wings floating in the water behind them. Sometimes they'd hike even lower, below the cloud level to where trees grew as tall as mountains and rain fell from the sky.  

Mostly though, he remembered the biting cold winters atop the mountains. He remembered the blizzards that would send the village deep into the caves to wait out the storms, and the final days of winter when the stores inevitably ran out and the biting hunger that followed. His mother would hold him in her lap, shushing his tears while his father braved the outdoors to bring back any food for his people. His people, he was their chief, as would Ace be when he was old enough.  

When he was 15 winters old he and his cousin had hiked down the mountain in the crisp Autumn air, their wing feathers constantly fluffing and accidentally catching the frost that still hung in the morning hours. They'd wanted to glide down the mountain currents, but the riverbeds were drying up again which meant it was getting too cold to fly. Soon these trips to the forests of green would be over for another season of being trapped in the caves.  

Luffy hadn't stopped coughing the entire way down, a wet hacking thing that he insisted was nothing but was only getting worse. They were looking for plants, ones his father insisted would help the others who were even more sick than Luffy. Ace secretly wondered if maybe they weren't going to get better, but he never vocalized this.  

It had been midway through summer that the dark clouds had started collecting around their mountain. At first they hadn't thought much of it, as summer storms were becoming increasingly common, but when the clouds kept getting thicker and darker without releasing their rains they started to wonder if maybe something was wrong. Then the elders and the young started getting sick, and the clouds still hadn’t left, and it was autumn and now Luffy was sick and the clouds still hadn't left.  

"Ace" Luffy had gently whispered, tugging on his sleeve. When Ace didn't respond, he tugged again "Ace"  

"We can't rest again" he didn't even turn to face his 8 year old cousin "We need to be back up before sun down"  

"But Ace" he insisted,  _whined_  "My chest hurts Ace, please"  

"Well push through it, we’ve still got to get over the next crest and then down the valley"  

"But Ace" he persisted, but Ace ignored him.  

In the end they never made it to the bottom of the mountain, for once they reached the crest Luffy collapsed coughing up blood. Ace had carried him up back up to the village, and not once did the young boy rouse from his feverish state. When he'd arrived, sans herbs and an arm full of sick cousin his father had called an emergency meeting, one he'd been banned from joining.  

It'd lasted hours, with voices rising and falling, and more than one person storming out in a fit of rage and feathers only to rejoin later subdued and calm. His own father's voice had raised in rage and authority more than once, but Ace had been unable to decipher their words.  

It took hours but eventually the meeting had ended, and a decision made. Ace was fifteen winters old when the flight clan of roger decided to leave behind the poisoned skies of their mountain for the prosperous green lands below. It was a decision that would ultimately save humanity, but condemn the clan forever.  

\---- 

They'd moved down the mountain in only a few days, packing their most beloved of belongings. There were so many things that had to be left behind, including the paintings on the cave walls depicting their histories and greatest achievements, and their own family carvings.  

"It can't be helped" His father had explained to him "We can't bring the mountain wall with us"  

At nearly 16 winters he didn't want to acknowledge the truth in his father's words, he wanted to be mad that he was leaving his home and his personal history carved into the wall, a carving he'd have completed once he reached 20 winters and was officially an adult in the clan. His wings would be fully grown, and fully colored, and he'd be ready to take over for his father. Instead his piece would forever stain this wall, incomplete like that of a child who died before their 20th winter had passed.  

But every time he started getting too loud with thoughts, or too insistent with his protests, his father was quick to remind him "You cousin is dying. Your clan is dying"  

It always shut him up.  

It was true, the old and the young kept getting more and more ill from the noxious dark clouds spread through the air. Couriers from flight clans of different mountains had stopped coming, and any attempts to reach them resulted in the individual nearly falling from the sky. Even Ace had noticed it while packing, any strenuous activity was giving him coughing fits. Not nearly as bad as his little cousin, who was nearly immobilized, but enough that even he couldn't deny something was horribly wrong with the sky.  

And what angered Ace the most was that, to the people of flight, the sky was  _everything_. If the sky was dying, then he didn't have much hope for the rest of the world.  

\--- 

Sabo hadn't thought much of it when riots rocked the parliament building in the downtown center again. He'd boarded up his doors, counted his food, and resigned himself to at least a few days of solitude within his apartment.  

Soon enough, like every riot before it, the military came and cleared it all away just in time for everyone to come out and replenish their supplies.   

What was different, were the rumors circulating the marketplace.  

As a rule people tended not to talk to one another outside of transactions to avoid being accused of passing along information, but today the marketplace was buzzing. The story went that someone knew somebody who was living outside the city, near the polluted mountains. All kinds of life had been making its way down the mountain, or washing down the river, so something new was hardly unusual. What was so strange, was that apparently, they were Angels.  

"I heard they have great wings of gold" one man who'd bumped into him had whispered into his ear "going from their feet to well above their heads"  

"I heard they're all at least seven feet tall" Another woman selling soup had passed on to him "With golden haloes above their heads"  

But the most distressing rumor was the one taking everyone by storm, the reason the government hadn't shut them all up yet.  

"I heard they have children"  

\---- 

For a while things had actually been alright. Once they'd escaped from the cursed clouds everyone's health had seemed to improve. The weather was milder, and the green was much more plentiful rather than atop their barren mountain. There were even plentiful amounts of animals, which meant everyone was eating heartier than before.  

"We'll build new traditions down here" His father had assured him "And when your time comes, you will guide them to prosperity and peace"  

Ace always felt small when his father told him that, like he was somehow supposed to replace the man who'd led them for nearly a hundred winters. When he thought too hard on it, he thought there was no way he could hope to match him.  

And then they'd met the ground walkers.  

There were others, people who didn't belong to mountain clans or even flight people, without wings. They traded meats for hearty tools, and stories for stories. Ace learnt of great villages that housed more than their people had words for, of the great advancements these people made (that allowed them to fly! Without wings!) and medicine that could cure nearly any illness.  

But he also learned of wars so great they had torn the world apart. He learned the cost these great things had given them, of poisoned skies water and earth. Of a sickness that had stolen all their children and mothers, leaving them without a generation to follow them.  

Ace felt he was right, the sky was dying, and with her she was taking the people who killed her.  

"We should leave" he insisted to his father "Deep into the cracks of the mountains where the sky won't kill her children, and where these murderers will never find us"  

But his father refused. "They have medicine" he told him "medicine far more advanced than we've ever created, that could save our sick. That could save your mother"  

His mother was pregnant, he'd learned halfway down the mountain, but it was making her weak and susceptible to the poisons the ground walkers had leeched into the earth as price for their prized medicines and grand cities. They'd accomplished so much but now there would be nothing left.  

He'd been sitting outside when the ground walkers had come for them.  

\--- 

Rayleigh sat across from him, his emaciated face highlighted by the deep shadows cast by the fire. He leaned over to cough into his rag, spittles of red dotting the fabric.  

"You're getting worse" Ace poked the fires "The ground walker's poison is hurting you"  

"No more than the air of our home was" he rattled out, tucking the rag back in his pocket "Once we trade for the medicine it will be alright"  

Ace clenched his fist, exhaling sharply through his nose "But what if the trade never happens? These people speak of immeasurable cities and miracle medicines but I do not  _see_  these things! All I see are a dying race of creatures that poisoned the sky and now pay for the consequences."  

"Ah, Ace" Rayleigh shook his head "Do you not believe in the wind on a quiet day? Or the snow in summer? Or-" 

"Or the sun at night" Ace grumbled, rolling his eyes "Uncle Rayleigh I've heard the saying, I'm not a child"  

"You are barely of 16 winters Ace, be a child for a little while longer"  

Ace jumped to his feet as a deep rumbling shook the ground "Avalanche" he whispered with wide eyes.  

"No" Rayleigh countered, coming to his own feet "We are far from slopes and snow"  

Lights pierced the forest they occupied, like sunshine through a crack in the cave wall. The rumbling came closer, the lights became brighter, and then it all came to a halt.  

His heart pounded, and instinctually he knew something wasn't right. His clan emerged from their makeshift shelters to see what was going on but all he wanted to do was  _run._  

"Rayleigh" he urged "Take them back up the mountain, we could hold them off while you hide in the caves" 

His father came up behind him and placed a placating hand on his shoulder "Enough, Ace. I believe these are the traders we were told of"  

His father marched ahead of him, but Ace was undeterred, following his father and grabbing at his arms "Father something isn’t right. They've come unannounced in the dead of night with creations that sound of avalanches" He followed on his father's heels "of  _death"_  

"Enough!" Roger snapped, facing his son with a grimace "They have medicines we could never hope to concoct that could save your cousin's life, your mother's life, your  _sibling's_ life." He shook his head "This is not an opportunity we can ignore"  

"You are blind!" He spat "Your hope for a miracle the likes only the gods could grant blinds you to the real danger we are in. These are not a healing people, the ground walkers bring only death and poison wherever they go, have you not seen how much sicker are people are now that we have abandoned our home?"  

Roger looked ready to strike him down for his impudence, but his pregnant mother intervened between the two "Ace do not give up hope, there is a chance" she brought up a hand, just like his father had only moments ago, but instead caressed his cheek "You have your father's fire inside you, do not burn him with it"  

With eyes filling with tears of shame he turned and marched into the crowd of onlookers, finding his baby cousin alone having just stumbled out of his tent. He looked flush with fever, and there was dried blood collected on his lips and nose, but still he stood outside in the cold air.  

"Come here" he whispered, scooping the shivering boy into his arms "You're too sick to stand right now"  

"'m not" Luffy insisted, face pressed into Ace's shoulder "Just tired"  

Ace moved along the edge of the crowd, reluctant to bring his easily overwhelmed cousin into the throngs of wary flight people. Everyone's wings were twitching with concern, although their more ill brethren's wings simply drooped in exhaustion. There was nervous muttering throughout the gathered crowd, leading Ace to edge away from them so his ill cousin could rest better.  

His father stood at the head of the crowd, his pregnant mother gripping his hand next to him. They stood so close their wings were touching, and they never took their eyes off the ground walkers coming out of the avalanche machines.  

They were dark, with masks that not only covered their faces but their entire heads. They were covered in what was probably armor, dark as night to blend in with the forest. They didn't look welcoming.  

His father tried to approach them, and they opened fire.  

It was like thunder, like hearing a lightning bolt hit the ground right next to your head. His father stilled, and then collapsed. There was red blooming across his shirt and his mother was screaming.  

Ace felt frozen, like a white noise was taking over everything he heard. The black covered men moved into the crowd, and his people were screaming and running, and they were grabbing everybody they were grabbing his mother- 

One of them spotted him, and spotted Luffy, and started coming towards him.  

He panicked, whipping around and sprinting towards his mountain, the only safety he'd ever known. On the mountain there wasn't poisonous water, or ground walkers killing his father, killing  _his_ people.  

Dozens of others ran with him, his terrified people carrying their children. All around him they fell, the thunder machines behind them firing off again and again. He tried to take to the air again and again but there was no wind to catch his flight, they'd abandoned the sky and so the sky had abandoned them.  

There was an explosion in his wing and he was on the ground.  

He cradled Luffy in his arms, Luffy was crying his name over and over again and he was crying but Ace pushed him forward and whispered to him  

" _Run_ " 

And even when the ground walkers reached him, and chained him with the rest of his people, and dragged him past his father's corpse (that would never be burned on the highest point of their mountain, whose ashes would never be scattered to the winds to forever fly through the skies with their ancestors) he couldn't find himself to regret when he saw his cousin's dirty wings fleeing unseen from the ground walkers.  

\---- 

 _I made every single mistake_  

 _T_ _hat you could ever possibly make_  

\---- 

There was another protest today, and like always Sabo walked by with his head down.  

It was mostly mothers this time, protesting the draft and begging for their children back. The eligible draft age had been moved down again, but Sabo had been eligible for years now. It was luck that he hadn't been grabbed yet, and if he kept his head down and didn't take risks it would stay that way. 

So long as he didn't do anything, he would survive.  

The rumors about the angels had gotten louder. People said they were gone, some said the government had taken them, others said the government had killed them. Sabo didn't care, he needed to get more food so he could hunker down before the next riots took out the market.  

He turned down the same turn he took every day, food in one hand and keys in the other. With tensions rising in the markets he would be stuck inside again for a few days but he had enough food. He'd survive.  

There was a child curled up in the trash, but he ignored him to continue on his way. The boy looked starved, sick, and on death's door.  

The kid caught his sleeve as he was walking past "Please do you have some medicine? I need the medicine please, I'm really sick"  

Sabo shrugged him off, like he had to every other beggar who waited on the street corners to grab his sleeve "Medicine is expensive kid"  

The kid was crying, and coughing up blood, but Sabo kept on walking.  

\---- 

It was so cold.  

Ace was used to the cold. He was used to the bitter winters that froze his home every season as it was almost a celebration in itself. The whole village would move to the caves and tunnels where their summer stores waited, the children would carve more of their carving in the walls, adults would go and admire their own carvings, the culmination of twenty winters within the caves. They'd admire their ancestors' carvings, and mourn the incomplete ones of those who died before their twentieth winter.  

But this was a different type of cold. They'd taken the women, and the children, and no one knew where they were. Ace and the other men were each in their own cell. He could see Rayleigh a cell across from him, and Shanks to the left. From the whispered conversation he could only guess Buggy was next to him as Shanks was always as close to front of his cell as possible while chained to the wall to keep up conversation with his best friend.  

His father was dead, his mother was gone, his sibling was dead or stolen (He never got the chance to meet them, they never got a name, did they even live beyond their first few breaths surrounded by ground poison?)  

Alone in his cell, he wept.  

\---- 

A few days later, after the riots, Sabo left his house again. In the end he'd had slightly more food than needed, but with rising tensions he knew a week-long protest was just around the corner. He couldn't afford to get careless if he was going to survive.  

The boy was still there, and he was still alive, but he looked a lot worse.  _A lot_ worse. His collarbone was protruding, his wrists were thicker than his arms, and his cheeks were sunken in. He was lying on the ground now, curled up in a ball blood leaking from his mouth.  

He knew it was a dumb idea. He didn’t have enough money to feed both of them, let alone the medicine he'd need to survive the pollution exposure killing him. He was trouble who'd bring attention to himself. He was a risk.  

And yet on his way back from the market, with enough food for both of them but not much else, he picked up the boy and brought him to his apartment.  

\---- 

They'd taken Buggy yesterday, and Shanks was inconsolable. Rayleigh had been whispering low encouragements to the teen but he was ignoring them all, crying alone in the corner of his cell.  

Rayleigh was worse, and the ground walkers had started poking and prodding Ace. Apparently, whatever they were studying wasn't successful because they were getting more and more aggressive, taking blood samples, hair samples, skin samples, whatever they felt like. Ace had large portions of exposed flesh from where they'd taken grafts, and they stung in the exposed air.  

"Keep your chin up boys" Rayleigh's voice echoed down the hall "The sky will save her children, just you wait and have faith"  

"The sky is dead" Ace growled "And the Ground walkers killed her"  

Rayleigh inhaled to respond, but the air caught in his throat and soon his face was on the ground coughing up more and more blood, and it wasn't stopping.  

"Rayleigh!" Ace shouted, straining against his restraints "Rayleigh!"  

The commotion caught the attention of the ground walker guards, but they did nothing to help the elder dying on the floor "Rayleigh!"  

Finally as the coughs subsided Ace heard a pair of the scientist's clicking boots coming down the hall, and he wanted to shout at them for being too late, for offering medicine when instead they tortured his people, for killing his father and stealing his mother away, but he held his tongue as he'd always been taught to do. They stopped outside of Rayleigh's cell, but instead of opening the dying man's door they opened his own.  

"Subject 0034" The man read out the number they'd given to Ace, that they'd tattooed on his chest like an animal "Vital signs strong, brightest plumage of the group. Extract him"  

The guards came to him but all Ace could hear was Rayleigh's wet hacking cough resuming where he couldn't see. He strained to catch sight of his mentor but they untied him from the wall, and began pulling him out of the cell.  

"Rayleigh!" He screamed, seeing the man on the floor surrounded by blood "Rayleigh!"  

As they dragged Ace down the hall he saw the elder slowly raise his head, and Ace wasn't proud of how his voice rose like a child's but he could finally admit it.  

He was scared.  

\---- 

The boy didn't have long left. 

Sabo knew this when he took him in, but it became incredibly obvious once he was inside and sat at his tiny dining room table. He was shivering and barely sitting upright, hunched over with elbows resting on his table. There were lumps under his shirt, tumors probably, on his back.  

"Here" he felt awkward, like he didn't want to face the boy properly. How long had it been since he'd had an actual conversation, or someone visiting in his house? He gave the boy a bowl of soup, and looked around awkwardly. He had the bare essentials to survive, no couch and only one chair now occupied by a sick dying boy which left Sabo standing awkwardly with nowhere to go.  

"Thank you" he murmured under his breath, before ignoring the spoon and just picking up the plastic bowl to start drinking it. Sabo didn't mind, especially since the kid took extra care not to spill or waste any.  

"Yeah whatever" yeah whatever? What was wrong with him? It was like he'd completely forgotten how to speak! "When you're done you can go sleep in the bed, just down the hall to the right." 

The boy looked up, and down the hall he gestured to. His arms were shaking just holding the bowl up, and it was obvious he probably wouldn't be able to make it down the hall on his own.  

"I can carry you down there" Sabo offered. Why'd he do that? That didn't make any sense! "Once you're done"  

The only thanks he got was a nod as the kid returned to his soup. He was about to go down the hall to wash his hands in the bathroom opposite his bedroom when the kid's voice popped up "Luffy" 

Intelligently he asked "Huh?" Turning to face the kid.  

"My name is Luffy"  

"Oh" He paused "Mine's Sabo"  

"Winds be with you Sabo"  

"...And with you as well"  

\---- 

They had him strapped face down to a table, leather bindings cutting deep into his arms and legs to keep him down. His wings were pulled upwards, straining the joints and exposing all of his feathers to the entire room. People, scientists, were milling in and out mumbling to themselves. Some were taking measurements, others took even more of his blood. Some of them had even plucked some of his feathers, making him scream and bleed even more.  

The ground walkers were truly evil. They'd listened to his screams, wrote down some more notes, and then they'd injected his wing with something and  _now he couldn't feel them at all_.  

They were still poking him, taking his blood and feathers, bending his wings in unnatural ways, but he  _couldn't feel it at all_. 

"Subject responded strongly to the anesthesia." A woman's voice rand loud and clear through the room, stilling all movement "At T-minus 1:40 it showed reaction to having a feather removed, but not at T-plus 0:30, 1:15, or 1:50. Administer anesthesia to dorsal muscles and proceed with extraction. Do not damage the wing bones, we need the marrow people"  

Ace's fear skyrocketed, and he began thrashing in his restraints but it only made the numbing spread faster. He began shouting and screaming for help, for his mother, for Rayleigh, or even for Shanks to save him.  

But no one came for Buggy, and no one came for him.  

They gagged him, and he felt the first knife enter his back. It wasn't painful, the numbing prevented that, but he felt it digging around his already tense joints. The pain only came when they started cutting away tender tissues and tendons, separating his wing from his body.  

They were stealing his everything.  

After the first wing was gone he collapsed, still on the table sweating and crying. He would never fly free from this place, never fly with his ancestors in the sky. The ground walkers were evil creatures who had poisoned the ground they needed to survive, and when that wasn't enough they'd poisoned their waters, poisoned their own foods, and when even that wasn't enough they'd gone and killed the sky.  

And now they'd kidnapped his people, murdered his father, and finally stolen the last piece of his identity he had connecting him to home.  

Everything felt like white noise, and he was getting colder, and there were pins and needles all across his body, but he turned his head to face the woman who'd spoken the first time.  

Gritting his teeth, he slurred "I will never forgive you"  

She blinked, but otherwise did not react to him "His words are slurring and he's losing energy, did we administer too much anesthesia"  

"No ma'am" a grunt to his left he couldn't see replied "But there appear to be a least two or three arteries connecting the wing to the rest of the body which we didn't anticipate, so he's losing blood fast. If we could give him a transfusion-"  

"Don't bother" she began jotting down more notes on her clipboard "We don't need it alive for the wing bone marrow. Just get the other wing and be done with it"  

There was a hurried "Yes Ma'am" and then another knife digging, and cutting, and stealing even more from him.  

And Ace's vision faded to black the last thing he saw was the evil ground walking woman who mercilessly ordered his execution.  

\---- 

It turned out not to be a problem that Ace never completed his cave carving, because he would never reach 20 winters anyway.  

\---- 

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special announcement to make!"  

Sabo didn't normally attend these sorts of things, but it had been made mandatory for everyone in the markets at the time to listen to their special announcement and so Sabo had cooperated and kept his head down, as had everyone around him. A funeral march to the bloodstained steps of the parliament building which was rocked with protests and riots every other week, where those who spoke out were gunned down.  

But they seemed actually pleased this time, or something along those lines if the speaker's grin was anything to go by "I am pleased to announce that we have discovered a new species in our very own country! They have been aptly named the Fae by the scientists who discovered them due to the massive wings, but most importantly!"  

The crowd was growing restless, unenthused murmurs skating across the crowd as people grew impatient wishing to return home, but all of that changed when she pulled out a human baby with wings on its back.  

"The Fae have had no such Infertility problems as us, and by injecting Fae wing bone marrow into humans we have managed to begin impregnating women once more! The infertility is over!"  

The crowd burst into cheers around him, and he joined in, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the crying newborn baby in her arms. It seemed so small, with tiny bright red wings clutched closely to its back. It had tiny tufts of black hair atop its head, and almost reminded him of Luffy.  

The baby was screaming, overwhelmed by the noise and no doubt separated from its mother at such a young. It pulled his heartstrings seeing something so small and fragile in obvious distress, but it wasn't like there was anything he could do. This wasn't like Luffy who he casually managed to hide in his apartment, this was something the government valued above all its citizens, the key to saving the human race.  

Sabo had no qualms leaving the area once the announcement finished, and he hurried home to tell Luffy the good news. He didn't run, but he did walk much faster than normal but he figured he didn't look too out of place considering the circumstances. He could barely contain his glee once he made it onto his block past the corner where he'd picked up Luffy and up the steps to his converted motel.  

With little to no pause to unlock his door he ran inside shouting "Luffy! Luffy! You won't believe the most wonderful thing that happened today, The Infertility it's cured! Can you believe it? Luffy?"  

There was no response, which wasn't unusual for the sick boy to rest through Sabo arriving home from the markets, but he figured his entrance surely would have woken him? 

With slow, tentative feet he went down the hall to his room, and eased the door open.  

At first he thought the boy was asleep, as he'd initially assumed, but then he saw the boy's chest was no longer rising and falling.  

"Oh" he closed the door behind him, exiting back into the hall. He leaned back on the shut door, sliding down until he sat on the floor. "Oh"  

He didn't know why he was so upset, he knew the boy was dying when he'd taken him in and he'd even ignored the kid (Luffy, he reminded himself, winds be with you) because the kid had tumors on his back and was coughing up blood from pollution poisoning.  

So why then was he crying?  

Tears slipped out against will, and he felt a sob building in his throat. He felt too small in his body, like the world and the constant fear, and paranoia, and vigilance was slowly suffocating. The years he'd spent with his abusive family, the years he'd spent starving and hiding on the run all suddenly came out in one little boy who never got the chance to live, who died alone in his sleep in Sabo's bedroom.  

Alone in his hallway, Sabo cried from the bottom of his heart for the first time in ten years.  

\---- 

The next day he'd taken Luffy's tiny frail body, and carried it 5 miles to the outskirts of the city to bury him in the woods. He didn't know much about him, or his culture, other than that he was dying from pollution poisoning and greeted him "winds be with you" so he figured the boy would rather be with nature than trapped in the city.  

He'd hiked out to the forest and after hours of walking to leave the city he'd taken a shovel he'd dug out of the garbage and dug for an hour and a half until it was deep enough to bury Luffy in.  

He'd wrapped the boy in the sheet he'd died on, as he figured he'd never be able to use it again, as a pseudo coffin. With no one else there he'd dropped the boy's body into the makeshift grave, and only winced a little at the sound it made hitting the bottom. He'd then said a few words for the boy he'd known for only a few days, refilled the hole, and was home before sundown.  

Now he was sitting alone in his home, at the lone dining room chair he'd sat Luffy at when he'd first taken him in, in front of his now bloodstained table as Luffy had coughed on it a few times, with a hole the size of his country in his heart.  

He didn't know how long he sat there, only that it was enough time for the sun to rise, and a banging to rock his door.  

With shaking feet he opened the door to face two military soldiers in full uniform.  

"You've been drafted" The burlier of the two announced "Russia has declared war for our cure" 

"I didn’t receive a draft warrant" Sabo's voice shook, he hid his trembling hands behind his back. He could hardly hear the soldier through the frantic racing of his own heart.  

"No more warrant, we're at war" They made to grab him but he jumped back out of their reach, eyes quickly flitting about his apartment for an escape. He had no supplies but he could find some, the clothes on his back would keep him warm and the boots on his feet would take him far.  

They didn’t give him more than a second to breathe before they charged into his apartment. He ran to the window, knocking his bloodstained table into their path but they shoved it aside with ease. He launched himself onto the counter, and without a moment to lose he smashed his hand through the kitchen window, shattering the broken glass all over himself.  

That was as far as he got before the soldiers got a hold of him, pulling him off the counter and throwing him to the floor covered in his broken kitchen window. They each got an arm under him, and lifted him to his feet. His head spun as they dragged him out to the convoy sitting on his tiny residential road. All around the neighborhood similar scenes played out as they dragged men, old and young, from their homes at gunpoint to the truck. Some of them were so emaciated it was a wonder the army was bothering to arm them at all.  

He was thrown into the truck, and although he knew hit the ground hard he felt numb. There was a distinct static in his ears muffling all the sounds around him, slowly he got up and took a seat next to a sniveling boy no older than 14.  

He felt worthless. After all this time he'd spend hiding and dodging draft officials, and in the end it didn't even matter because here he sat looking out from the wrong side of the army windows. He wanted to be brave, he wanted to incite a riot where they all broke free and scattered to the winds unrestricted, living in the wilds with the flight people and waiting out the war old men started to line their pockets.  

But riots rocked the city every week or so, and they always ended the same. And Sabo hadn't got this far by taking risks.  

In the end, Sabo watched his neighborhood drive away through the truck window and never saw it again.   

\---- 

 _I had a_ _one way_ _ticket to a place where all the demons go_  

 _Where the wind_ _don't_ _change, and nothing in the ground can_ _ever grow_  

 _No hope, just lies, and you're taught to cry in your pillow_  

\---- 

They died because they didn't listen to their hearts, because they didn't take risks, and they didn't have each other.  

Given a chance to try again, could it be different?  

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on this fic (buckle up I have a lot)  
> \- On Flight people culture, basically I asked Lee (author of HWM) for details regarding Fae during the Infertility and she said that while they did exist pre-everything they were rare, so I decided they didn't have contact with humans. I thought it would be really interesting if there was a culture there beforehand that got wiped out.  
> \- One of their important things are these huge cave carvings they do. They started as a way to keep kids entertained during the long winter months trapped inside but then grew in huge cultural significance. If you live long enough to not only start, but also end, your carving then you're considered an adult (20 winters)  
> \- They fly a lot!! And they visit other clans and trade with them when they can.  
> \- My headcanon for the Infertility was pollution, but up in the mountains they had clean glacier water and food untouched by humans so they were good until the air itself became too toxic and then they were fucked (not to mention humans slowly climatized to the pollution over time, they suddenly got exposed all at once so they started getting sick)  
> \- Their culture was completely destroyed by humans so that’s why you don't see it in HWM  
> On the characters themselves:  
> \- It didn't really occur to me to do this whole thing where the characters die because they were huge contrasts to their HWM counterparts until like,,, halfway through the fic so asdfghjkl I hope I did a good job of it?  
> \- The most important one for me was Sabo, because he's Lee's favorite B) basically a huge defining trait for him in HWM is how selfless he is, and how much he wants to help (and how much he can't stand people who can help and instead stand by and do nothing) so I really wanted to contrast that by doing a bitter, hardened Sabo who only looks out for himself  
> \- For Ace it was a little harder cuz again, this idea didn't hit me right away. Basically I decided that as Ace was going before he met Sabo in HWM he was probably going to die, but then he met Sabo and decided to follow his heart and here is (is he going to die still? Only lee knows) but in this fic he instead ignores his heart (telling him to escape into the mountains) and does what everyone tells him to do (and gets killed by humans)  
> \- Asdfghjll for Luffy I think it became really obvious that my whole flawed people idea came too late cuz Luffy only died cuz of the pollution poisoning him so like I guess the whole theme was more focused on Ace and Sabo's flaws?  
> \- Don't think too hard about where Sabo is getting his money from just assume he has some lame ass job  
> \- I know the nuclear wars didn't come until after the infertility, and russia's ecological disaster was only in europe, so when the flight people are referring to the poisoned air or how the sky is dead that’s just the pollution (which is killing them) but hoo boy things get a lot worse  
> \- I lowkey headcanon that HWM is the reincarnations of these boys, and so Ace being tortured and murdered by the humans in this life helps explain his huge hatred of humans in HWM besides the whole slavery thing 
> 
> If you haven't guessed I thought A LOT about this fic plz talk to me


End file.
